


I Don't Know

by semele



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena feels calm. Set between 4x07 and 4x08. I'm working under the assumption that the sire bond doesn't exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Know

**Author's Note:**

> For Nat, who demanded “Elena's head at the beginning of 4x08”. This was supposed to be a happy, fluffy porn drabble. To which I say: have you met me?

Elena feels calm.

Recently her days have been locked between “can” and “cannot”, such a mess, really, not enough space for her “I don't know” or “I'm not sure”. It was choice after choice after choice, no second chances and no time to breathe; Elena doesn't even remember the last time she slept properly.

Damon stirs beside her and it wakes her with a start. Her vampire hearing can still surprise her, and sometimes she slips up at night, forgets to tune out the hum of the dishwasher or distant steps on the pavement. Besides, neither of them is used to sleeping with someone else (not even Elena, not anymore), so the first night is bound to be at least a bit awkward, full unexpected sounds and limbs getting in a way.

Elena's sudden movement must've woken Damon, because when she looks at him, he's clumsily trying to sit up. He looks ridiculously vulnerable in the dark, his hair a mess and his eyes still half-shut. Elena saw him naked long before she actually slept with him, and only now she feels like she is witnessing something truly intimate, so she tries to remember all the details. Damon wakes slowly, stretches his limbs before he opens his eyes, then grunts and looks around, confused.

“Is everything alright?” he mutters when he sees her.

“Yeah. Sorry I woke you.”

He shrugs, and Elena automatically reaches to touch his messy hair, not really his usual look. She's about to make a joke about it, but she stops, mesmerized, when Damon sleepily leans into her touch. Another choice opens before her, and she has to make it, make it now and make it well, there will be no second chances.

It takes all the courage she has to press a soft, chaste kiss to Damon's lips.

She can feel his eyes watching her curiously as she starts caressing him, but she's made her choice and there's no looking back now. She knows that he wants her, wants her laughing and wants her shouting, wants her tears and blood and teeth, but she isn't sure if he'd want her like this, unsure lips and shaking hands. Elena takes a deep breath and stops smoothing her face. She pulls away, and her eyes catch Damon's when she sits up. She doesn't even know why she needs him to see her, but she needs it so badly it almost hurts.

She needs him to see her let go.

“What is it?” he asks as if he knew it was the right question.

Elena lets out a sharp laughter.

“I don't know,” she says truthfully.

She feels calm, relaxed and safe, and suddenly the world is crashing around her, hitting her so hard she can't breathe. The fear she's been hiding somewhere in the back of her head ever since she transitioned turns into horror, and Elena bites her lip until she tastes blood.

“I don't know,” she repeats helplessly, not even sure what she's talking about, the past or the future, her brother wanting to kill her or Stefan wanting to fix her, the cure she doesn't know how to find or the hunger she doesn't know how to control.

Her hand is still in Damon's hair, and it's hard to tell if she pulls him up, or maybe he sits up all on his own. What matters is that somewhere between the second and third “I don't know” he's so close he almost touches her, his lips by her ear, his head still leaning into her hand.

“Me neither,” he whispers when she goes out of breath.

It's ridiculous of course, ridiculous and utterly useless, the two of them together in a dark room like a pair of idiots, sharing a secret that should never have been said out loud. Her ragged breath or the sincere look on Damon's face don't really solve anything.

She still pulls him into a kiss, not even pretending she wants to take it any further, and he responds eagerly, lets her sit in his lap and cry, and laugh, and kiss. Elena feels slow and heavy, more boneless after her panic attack than she was after sex mere hours ago, but she doesn't even care, just kisses him until they fall asleep again.

Their problems will still be there in the morning.


End file.
